Firms Sell Bird`s-eye View Of Crisis

Spy Satellites Giving Media Another Angle On Mideast

WASHINGTON — The satellite photographs sold by a Ft. Worth company can spot a peach tree in a Texas orchard or a vending truck outside a museum.

They can also spot a Scud-B missile or a formation of Iraqi tanks poised along the Saudi Arabian border.

The Persian Gulf crisis has heightened interest in the pictures marketed by Conti Trade Services Corp. in North America, said Velon Minshew, the company`s chief salesman. The pictures come from a commercial venture called Soyuzkarta, created by the Soviet government to make money from its military satellites.

While satellite photographs have a number of potential applications and customers, Minshew said much of the current interest comes from media organizations trying to get a leg up on their competition in covering the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion.

Soyuzkarta photos are no match for American spy satellites, but they are the clearest pictures available commercially.

``If you have a professional who knows what he is looking for and what he is seeing, it can do a very, very good job,`` Minshew said.

The satellite takes pictures of areas of either 50 miles by 60 miles or 100 miles by 110 miles. Objects as small as 15 feet across are identifiable.

Soyuzkarta is not the only company willing to sell satellite pictures of the Gulf. Maryland-based EOSAT, which inherited the U.S. satellite-imagery business from the federal government in 1985, also can look down on the Gulf. A French company called SPOT Image is in the business as well.

Iraq`s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent buildup of American and other military forces in Saudi Arabia has added a new twist to a business normally concerned with more peaceful pursuits, such as looking for oil and gas deposits or monitoring agricultural practices.

Soyuzkarta and EOSAT are both abiding by ``open skies`` policies of selling products to any paying customer other than the Iraqi government itself, which is the subject of an international embargo.

The French SPOT Image company, though, has decided business has to take second place to world politics. The Toulouse-based firm has decided not to sell any imagery of the Middle East to news organizations.

``The decision was made because we did not want to get involved in the conflict,`` said company spokesman Clark Nelson.

Satellite experts say SPOT`s decision probably comes from a desire not to offend governments, which are more regular customers than news organizations. Soyuzkarta, EOSAT and SPOT Image all sell pictures and data that do not match the resolution of American spy satellites, which are reputed to be able to show the headlines of newspapers.

But they might be of some help to the Iraqis.

The Iraqis have no spy satellites of their own, said John Pike, director of the Federation of American Scientists space policy project.

Their intelligence comes from cameras and radars mounted on airplanes and from monitoring developments reported by Western news sources.

EOSAT is of the least interest militarily because objects have to be 100 feet wide to show up in its pictures. Its emphasis is on gathering information on both visible and invisible frequencies that can be manipulated by computers for a variety of purposes.

It is commonly used by oil and gas exploration companies to examine geological formations.

Government agencies use it to look at natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and oil spills. The Department of Agriculture uses it to monitor the application of fertilizers and pesticides.

But it is not very good for zeroing in on single objects.

``I can`t imagine that you would be getting anything in the way of tactically interesting information, just because the resolution is so poor,`` Pike said.

SPOT Image has the second-best resolution and is able to pinpoint 30-foot-wide objects. It has been the satellite of choice for media

organizations.

It was used for a 1988 ABC News special on Iranian missiles in the Persian Gulf and was widely used to examine a fire at a Libyan chemical factory. After a week of surveillance, the U.S. government determined the fire was a staged event meant to deceive satellites.

The company`s decision not to supply the media with pictures of the Middle East prompted a recent column in the trade publication Space News calling for news organizations to pool their resources and buy their own satellite.

According to Pike, SPOT`s resolution puts it in a different category from EOSAT.

``You`re starting to get into the area of maybe counting airplanes, maybe telling the difference between a cargo plane and a fighter plane, possibly getting some sense of where the soldiers are dug in,`` Pike said.

``Soyuzkarta is even better,`` he added. ``There you`re starting to get into something that might be interesting.``

But Soyuzkarta has two drawbacks. It is an active Soviet military-mapping satellite; its commercial endeavors are a mere sideline. And it takes conventional photographs that have to be parachuted to earth rather than transmitted.

The result has been fewer pictures and fewer instances in which it can be used by private firms.

``It`s one thing for them to say they are taking orders`` said Pike.

``It`s another for them to actually deliver.``

But Minshew says he has pictures of the Gulf from before and after the invasion.

The two companies selling imagery of the Gulf say they do not think they could jeopardize American forces in any way. Both say they will honor the embargo against Iraq and not make their products available to the Iraqis.

Minshew said his company is doing complete background checks on potential customers to make sure they are not a front for the Iraqis.

``Before we sell any data,`` said Minshew, ``we know quite well who our customers are.``